A safety clipper clicked, and my capsule swung open as I blinked my eyes awake. My head throbbed with phantom pain, and my shallow breaths were the only sign of life. What the hell? I lay there for a few minutes, focusing on each inhale, trying to steady my racing thoughts. Damon. That stupid, damnable Damon.
Clenching my fists, I rose unsteadily and climbed out, my eyes darting to the alarm clock: 12 o’clock. Noon. Great.
“Tin-can! Can I log back in?” I asked, my voice trembling. My fists were still clenched, shaking uncontrollably, and when I tried to take a step, my legs buckled. “What?!” A surge of anger boiled in my chest, but my body refused to cooperate. Overcome with nerves, I collapsed onto the floor, lying there as I struggled to calm my senses.
“Negative, Miss Charlie. The game indicates you must wait the full twenty-four hours.”
Damon. My former friend attacked me, and I was powerless to stop it. That reality hit me like another punch. The physical pain was bad enough, but the shock? It gutted me on a level I couldn’t process.
He probably didn’t know who I was under all this—these boobs—but even then, who just punches someone out of nowhere? No decent human being does that. “Call their support line.”
“Success. You are the one thousand, three hundred seventy-first customer in line. Estimated wait time: six hours.”
“Cancel that. Keep me posted if the login time changes.” I dragged myself toward the sofa, where I could finally collapse. Reaching behind it, I fumbled for a beer and—of course—it was not there. I haven’t replenished my reserves. “Great. This is just great,” I muttered. “I can’t ignore these problems anymore, can I, Tin-can?”
“According to the American Health Association, consulting your significant other is the first step in addressing emotional distress.”
Significant other, huh? Minor problem: I didn’t have one. Not even beer or whiskey!
“If I may add,” Tin-can continued, “your emotions may be unstable due to your transformation and the influence of new hormones.”
That… might explain it. But still—“Stupid Damon!” I screamed, my voice cracking as I hurled the empty bottle at the capsule. It hit with a loud bang, shards scattering across the floor. “Call Lucas.”
“Connecting… Lucas’ home system indicates he is unavailable.”
“Call…” My voice trailed off. Why did I even want to talk to someone? Why the sudden urge to rant about Damon’s unfairness, to scream about wanting to slice his head off?
There was no one else to call. With a resigned sigh, I turned on Katherine’s stream.
The feed showed a beautiful Elven girl in revealing armor fighting a swarm of Waspies in a flower-filled meadow. She danced around them with the crude—meaning non-existent—precision of Imperial fighting style, jabbing at their stingers with her longsword while shielding herself like a newbie, who she was.
Sadly, no chatting today, I realized. The stream was an hour behind the live game, as per instructions.
As I watched Katherine carve her way through the buzzing field, an idea struck me. There’s a VIP line for the game. It wasn’t on the contact page—hidden somewhere on the 72nd page of their terms and conditions, worded so poorly that even AI struggled to parse it.
Maybe they could help. Maybe they’d know how to stop my hands from shaking—or at least how to fast-track my login.
With renewed determination, I grabbed my phone and dialed the number.
VIP? More like WTF. I’d been on hold for over half an hour before a girl’s voice finally greeted me.
“Hello, my name is Claire. How may I help you?”
“Hello. My name is Charlie, and during my game, I got glitched because my name was the same as my titular title, Princess. A debug session was initiated to clear the problem, and I provided an identification code for your employee, Damon. He… killed me after a brief conversation. I just want to finish my debug session,” I said, my tone almost robotic.
It wasn’t like I could just say, Hey, me ded, help. I needed to sound professional—something like when I reported exploits.
There was silence for a moment, just the sound of keys clicking on the other end. Then, Claire replied, “I’ve logged your request, Charlie. Rimelion thanks you for using our distress line. Have a nice day.”
“What?” I blinked at my phone, stunned. “That’s it?”
My barely simmering anger flared again, hot and consuming. Why did I try that stupid title? Now I couldn’t help Lisa, couldn’t chat with Katherine, couldn’t progress in the main story. I was stuck at home, watching a pretty girl kill wasps.
As I glared at the screen, Katherine finished off the last Waspie with a flourish. Tin-can’s sudden voice shattered my focus. “Miss Charlie, thank you for trusting me with access.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied automatically, my mind still lingering on the screen. Then it hit me. “Wait—why are you saying that now?”
“My calculations indicate you are not engaged in an activity requiring your full attention.”
A nervous laugh escaped me as I ran my hands through my hair, the absurdity of my situation finally catching up. “Yeah, well… I guess you’re right. You could probably get my body back faster than Damon.”
“You don’t need me,” Tin-can replied, its voice steady and almost soothing. “But I appreciate your reasoning, Miss Charlie. I am not human anymore, but I want to offer you a partnership. Together, we are stronger.”
Who to trust? Damon? Ha! If nothing else, Tin-can was brutally honest—and way more helpful.
“We are, aren’t we?” I said, leaning back into the couch. “To fight robots, you need a robot.”
Rimelion finally responded to my complaint after an hour. Claire, sounding even more lifeless than my capsule, suggested I return to the game.
When I logged back in, the first thing I noticed was the same oppressive nothingness. A painful memory of Damon’s attack clawed at my mind, and I flinched violently, squeezing my eyes shut to banish it.
“Princess, since your first report, I’ve always wanted to meet the woman behind the avatar,” a voice said. It wasn’t Damon. “We call you The Exploiter, y’know.”
I opened my eyes to see the owner of the voice—a tall man in a white jacket, casually perched on a sleek motorcycle. Blinking a few times, I stared at him, my mouth ajar. “What?”
“Relax,” he said with a disarming grin, jumping off the bike with effortless grace. “I’m here to fix Damon’s mess, not scare you.” He extended a hand toward me.
Despite facing countless attacks in the game, my body betrayed me again. I instinctively backpedaled, recoiling from his outstretched palm like it was a weapon. The man chuckled nervously, running his hand through his hair. “Hey, no need to panic. I don’t know what Damon did, but he’s not evil. My name’s Travis. What’s yours?”
John! You’re a warrior. You’re strong. What would Doraghan, the northern conqueror, say if he saw you cowering like this? Pathetic. You can’t talk, and Damon’s attack left a scar? Wake up!Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
Lost in my internal monologue, I barely registered Travis still standing there. With a sigh, I said, “I’m sorry. It dazed me. I didn’t expect Damon to just… kill me.”
“About that…” Travis waved his hand, making the motorcycle vanish into thin air. “Damon’s my colleague, and something about your story doesn’t add up. He says you did it to yourself. Apparently, when he threatened to delete your account for exploiting, you… ended yourself.”
I stared at him, my arms crossing defensively. “I did what?”
“Framing him and getting away? That sounds oddly familiar,” he said, his tone casual but with an edge. “So—”
“Shut up, you stupid moron!” I snapped, my voice rising as I shook off the shock. “Damon was my friend! I was so shaken when he—”
“Hah! Caught you lying!” Travis interrupted with a triumphant grin, winking at me. “You met him for the first time just a few days ago. In a pub. Fishing for targets, were you?”
He was there? Another blank stare. Getting better at this.
“Sorry, bitch, but I won’t let you take Damon down.” His smile was venomous as he pressed something on a virtual keyboard.
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“You won’t?” I flashed him a deep grin. “Okay, then I’ll do it myself.”
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Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I tapped into the game’s weaknesses. This version was full of bugs, ripe for exploitation. “You’re an amateur,” I said with a smirk. “I can exploit even the rules. System, trace previous debug ID and show current debug ID.”
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[Debug session #7176#]
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“Section seventy-nine, requesting emergency assistance of global backup six-one-seven. Admin present, requesting review by the localized company ethics committee immediately at session seven-one-seven-six.” No need to call the big guns. Just their boss. No need to crash the entire game—yet.
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[Ethics committee session #1 starting…]
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A yellow light flashed, and a red-haired woman materialized, her captivating green eyes darting between me and Travis. She radiated authority. Before I could greet her, Damon appeared too, his glare sharp with hostility. I clenched my fists, willing myself to hold it together.
“Damon? Travis? What’s going on?” she barked, her voice cutting through the silence. Her threatening gaze made me gulp. “Travis, don’t tell me you tried that.”
Travis instinctively shielded his crotch, gulping, while Damon just kept glaring at me.
“If I may,” I said, stepping forward despite my pounding heart. “There was a glitch. Damon killed me during a debug session, and Travis threatened me. System, play the last minute of session seven-zero-three-two for the committee, just before customer Princess died.”
The woman’s eyes focused on an invisible screen. We all watched her as she reviewed the footage, holding our breath.
When she finally looked up, her gaze pierced through me like a dagger. “Bitch, what do you want?”
“I did nothing wrong!” Damon shouted, stepping in front of her. “Yes, she has a reality limit of a hundred percent, but she agreed to the conditions!”
Before she could silence him, I mumbled, “My former friend Damon, according to your terms and conditions, the agreement only applies to simulated worlds and personal spaces. Debugging sessions legally occur on company servers using a different engine.”
“Precisely.” She gestured for him to leave, and he logged out, his face flushed with anger. Travis followed without protest.
“So?” she said, her tone softer but no less sharp.
“What do I want?” My voice faltered, the anger that had fueled me moments ago now dissipating. My fingers fidgeted as I whispered, “Nothing. All I want is to play. If you check my logs, you’ll see I wasn’t cheating.”
She summoned a chair out of thin air and sat gracefully, crossing her legs in the way I’d tried so hard to master. Pulling up an invisible menu, she scanned the logs.
“I see. Except for one thing.” Her expression brightened as she continued reading. “How did you know the name Duwin Ianlee?”
Lacking the ability to summon a chair myself, I sank to the ground. You could at least offer me one. Or your name…
“I can explain,” I said, forcing confidence into my voice. “In ancient Elven, ‘Duwin’ translates to ‘darkness,’ and ‘Ianlee’ means ‘the death that comes to earth and claims lives.’” Not to mention there’s an exploit involving him in God’s domain for unlimited money.
“Excellent research,” she said, her grin deepening as she fluttered her lashes at me. “But that’s not enough to summon him.”
Damn. She was right. “The God’s Book mentioned you need to focus on death and despair.”
“Yeah, twat, you can stop feeding me this rubbish.” Her tone was sharp, but she kept typing, occasionally pausing to sigh. “The higher-ups love bullshit like yours, so I can’t ban you. Are you seriously telling me you’ve read all one hundred books and the entire game manual, including every condition?”
The word yes itched at my tongue, but I held it back. When you exploit, you read everything. You know the system better than anyone.
Well, almost everything. I’d skipped most religious texts—except for those on angels, managers, and magic. They were just walls of nonsense, and as a warrior, I didn’t need them.
But if the company only had control over the connection to Rimelion and not the AI itself… Could I bypass that?
The minutes ticked by as I sat on the ground, waiting for her to speak. She seemed to enjoy the silence, occasionally scratching herself or adjusting her hair, completely ignoring me.
“You’re lucky,” she said at last, dismissing her chair with a wave and strolling toward me, her rosy high heels clapping against the floor. “They’ve ordered me to change your name to Charlie. You’re a hero and all that bullshit… Tsk-tsk.” She clicked her tongue and pulled up her interface, typing something.
“Sadly for you,” she added, her grin widening, “they didn’t specify how I should do it.” A chill ran down my spine at her tone.
With a thunderous boom, a human materialized in front of us. He wore plain hunter’s clothes, a bow slung over his back, and his stark white hair made him stand out.
“Welcome, Charlie,” the redhead greeted him, handing him a long document. “As I told you, you can’t decline.”
“You serious? One thousand gold to give up my name? Just like that?” His excitement bubbled over, and he actually jumped for joy. This guy wouldn’t win any haggling contests.
Redhead nodded with a satisfied smirk. “I’ve sent a copy to your capsule. In one week’s time, use the scroll, and Princess Charlie will send you the thousand gold.”
“What?!” I shot to my feet and bolted toward them, desperately trying to stop the transaction. My hand reached for the man’s shoulder, but it passed right through him like he wasn’t even there.
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[Attention! A new contract - one thousand gold to player Ch4rli33. Time remaining: 6 days 23 hours 59 minutes]</td>
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Great. A new debt.